


Worth Fighting For

by snapslikethis



Series: Wartime Jily [5]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Marauders' Era, first wizarding war
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-20
Updated: 2015-09-20
Packaged: 2018-04-22 15:27:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,747
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4840664
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/snapslikethis/pseuds/snapslikethis
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Lily and the Marauders receive an offer from Dumbledore. What now?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Worth Fighting For

Lily sat at her rickety, Formica-topped table, fingernails systematically picking at the glueholding the label to its bottle, a habit her boyfriend found both annoying and endearing. She knew, because he often told her so.

James rarely missed an opportunity to speak his mind, but he hadn't uttered a damned syllable since they'd returned home. Sirius, Remus, and Peter, after having filed in shortly after, Chinese and liquor in hand, had been equally silent. This quiet unnerved her: it didn't at all suit her flat, normally bursting with these boisterous boys, and it didn't know what to do with itself. Neither did she. All the times at school they had refused as she'd hushed them so she could study, or sleep, or brew and now, when she needed their teasing, stories, laughter, they offered her nothing. She wanted to resent them for it, but couldn't, given what had just been asked of them.

The food was left untouched, cooling in half-opened cartons; the firewhisky had been welcomed by all. Lily took inventory as she nursed her second bottle.

Her flat—their shared flat, technically, her and James, but very much hers. The battered old table they were all huddled around was more hers than his. Rubbish, as furniture goes, but it had belonged to her parents. Her bottle, except for the swipe Peter had taken before passing it over. Her habit, this compulsive label picking. That has to be a metaphor for something, right? James. He was hers, irrevocably and absolutely. The boys? Perhaps. She'd thought she'd like them to be.

The war? The cause? The risk? Hers. Hers. Hers.

Lily plucked her courage and cleared her throat, staring at her bottle rather than the eight eyes burning into her. "I'm in. I'm joining, but I think you lot knew that." More blasted silence. Remus prodded an eggroll with his fork. She did resent them, then, for making her speak again. "What are you lot going…" No. "Has anyone else decided?"

Sirius spoke first, his voice lighter than the occasion demanded, and said casually, "I'm in. Where you go, Evans, Prongs will follow, and you can't have him without me trailing close behind."

And she knew he was joking, but she wanted to throttle him. She couldn't help her shudder, nor the tears forming in the corners of her eyes, threating to spill over. Sirius immediately realized his error. "Christ, it was a joke. I didn't mean—"

James cut him off, reaching forward to grab her hand. "He didn't mean that." She felt the pressure of his hand over hers, his thumb rubbing small circles on her upturned palm. Her hand wouldn't stop shaking. "I'm joining. I'm in," he said quickly, resolved, before she could cut him off. "I'm going to fight. But…it's not because of you."

She laughed derisively. "Don't insult me, James Potter, by assuming I'm a naive twit, yeah?"

"Alright," he conceded. "It's got a bit to do with you, but even I wasn't…if we weren't…I'd still join it."

It. The Order. He couldn't even say it by name. "Bullshit."

"Don't insult me, Lily Evans, by assuming that everything is about you. There's a war, yeah?"

"I don't know that, James? It's me they want dead."

"You, and a thousand others. It's not just you at risk. Moony. Mary. They want all of you all gone, and that's what's bullshit. And you know what that lot was up to last year—how many attacks we stopped. Do you think I could—what? Go play Quidditch? Get a Ministry job? Go on fucking holiday?"

Lily watched James look toward Sirius, presumably to give him one of those can-you-believe-this looks, but the chair was empty. She heard shuffling from behind the couch. The idiots retreated to the other side of the room to try to give them some privacy. James squeezed her hand.

"You could walk away," she insisted in a forceful, measured voice. "You _could_." He scoffed. Would he resent her for bringing it up? His blood status? His money? She wasn't wrong.

"So could you." She scoffed. "We could walk away from all this, together. Go on extended holiday. Disappear."

"I won't. I can't… I can't just _leave_ when my family is in danger." Petunia. Her family. Did she even count?

James nodded, said quietly, "And neither can I."

"Wha— _?_ " His parents were as safe as he was, protected by their name, and their status, and—her. Irrevocably and absolutely. Family. Her. "Oh."

"Yeah."

She didn't know how to process that, so she plowed on. "This is bigger than _us_ , James. I can't leave when other people are in danger. You can be angry at me, but it's not you who dodged 'mudblood' and hexes for seven years, who had to excel academically to prove you deserved your wand, who had to start reading the _Prophet_ and decipher legislation at fifteen to ensure your rights weren't being stripped away." She shut her eyes, squinting against her tears, but they began; she was powerless to stop them. Just like the damned war. "I can't leave, and I hate that I can't. I hate that this damn thing has been forced upon me. I'm eighteen. My biggest care should be shagging my boyfriend and exposing his idiot mates to the traveling fair."

James smiled a small, rueful smile. He pulled her out of her chair and onto his lap, into his arms. "I love you. Fuck, I love you. You fighting? Turns me inside out. I don't like it, but do you see me trying to convince you not to?" She shook her head, sobbing onto his shoulder. "I know you don't have a choice in this," he muffled into her hair, "and I can't understand half of what you've gone through, any of it, but damn, I don't have a choice in this either, alright?" A small movement, which he took for a nod. "I can't walk away from this. From you. From any of it. You can like my reasons or not, but they are what they are. I hate this too. You think I wouldn't rather be shagging and going to the fair? I was looking forward to that big spinning wheel."

"Ferris wheel, James," said Lily, laughing against his shirt. She whispered into his shoulder. "I know. Can you blame for me trying to convince you? I'm so damn grateful we're on the same… It terrifies me, you out there. I can't lose y—"

His lips cut her off, voicing what words were inadequate to say.

Because he was lying a bit, wasn't he? And it was terrifying to admit, that this relationship was the most important thing for either of them, and that they were forced to fight to defend their right to it. To each other.

It might not be their reason for fighting, but it was the reason neither of them would walk away. They conveyed with mouths on fire and fingers blazing trails: _I love you_ and _I am so fucking scared_ and _I am not going to leave you_ and _I am not going to let them take you away from me._

Loud, conspiratorial whispering from behind the couch eventually reminded them that they weren't alone. That, and Sirius's whistle, and his subsequent groan when Remus and Peter knocked him in the ribs. Lily and James pulled apart with a laugh and began composing themselves. She wiped at her tears, ran her fingers through her hair, but when she made to slide back into her chair, his hand tightened on her hip, and his lips grazed her shoulder. She stayed, politely looking away as he wiped the wetness from his eyes. The boys filed back into the room, taking their seats.

"Alright, Red?" Sirius asked.

"You don't have to call me that, you know. And I've been better."

"I do have to call you that, unfortunately. I've been told I have a," he looked to Remus, "propensity for saying exactly the wrong thing at exactly the wrong time." Sirius ruffed her hair and handed her his unfinished drink. An apology.

"One of the many things I adore about you, Black. You alright?"

He shrugged. "I'm fighting this thing, and it's not to trail after Prongs, or you. A bit, of course, but not entirely." His roguish smirk. "Fuck knows you'll both get distracted snogging and need me to cover your backs."

Lily smiled. Apology accepted. She didn't press him to explain his reasons for fighting, guessing that the rest started and ended with his other little brother. She turned to Peter.

"'Course I'm joining," he said before she could even ask. Didn't elaborate. Didn't need to.

She smiled warmly at him. "Going to tell your Mum?"

"She'd go barmy," he laughed, shaking his head. "Remember when she found out about the bike?"

Lily nodded, biting her lip, trying to stifle the grin, remembering as they recounted the several hour lecture Mrs. Pettigrew had subjected all four boys to when she'd discovered the existence of Sirius's motorbike.

"She doesn't even know it flies, Wormtail," said Remus to Peter. "Can't say I blame you for keeping this quiet. And I'm in," he said to the rest, "I'm joining. Although—"

"Can you tell us what he wanted?," asked James for the rest of them. "Does it have something to do with your fur—"

"Yes, but no details…yet"

They lapsed into another silence—still uncomfortable, but not as miserable as before. They were all fighting, together. Lily leaned her head back, resting against James's shoulder. "Is it…is it wrong that I want to do it? To fight back? That I'm ready to kick some Death Eater arse?"

"You've more reason than any of us, Evans," said Sirius. "It's not wrong."

"Do you think we'll win?"

Lily startled, hearing James's usually confident voice ask such a childish, uneasy question. She turned in his lap and ran a hand through his hair, kissed his forehead. She voiced what they all desperately wanted to believe. "'Course we will. We've got to."

Sirius held up his bottle in a mock toast, effectively ending the conversation. "Well, that's that, then. This is a pretty fucked up situation we're in, no?"

Peter said, "I'll drink to that." Remus held up his glass, and she and James followed suit.

"So, Red," said Sirius after they'd clinked glasses and indulged in several generous swigs, "what's this Prongs was saying earlier about a fair?"


End file.
